“ Sione T
I couldn't be bothered breaking down my points to the 6 points that the MFNP is trying to explain with clever tricks. All that I know that it is decreasing but why in the first place the combined the COLA to the basic salary. My understanding that the COLA is a stand alone entity and is not right in principle to be added to the basic salary to become a new basic salary scale. The COLA as an itentity is government's provision and is tax free and exclusive from the superannuation deduction and tax. But because they were clever to mislead by making the basic looks attractive by combining the COLA with the basic salary yet there seems the decreasing due to the tax and superannuation deduction that should have been to the basic only with the exclusion of the COLA.
Having said that I am willing to guess that this was done not aligning to any working policies and remunerating principles. While it was done in a swift shift it therefore negate the MOU that the goverment had signed as a resolution of the disatisfactions of the almost all civil servants who were on strike in 2005/2006 that led to the 16/11 arsenal riot and looting of Nuku'alofa.
Neverthelesp the MFNP's clever explanation is a camouflage for devising this new salary structure to disadvantage most civil servants that are in the mid section of the overall organisational chart of the government ministries. ”